


SDCC Hookup - Panelist of Adventure

by fresne



Series: SDCC Hookup [5]
Category: Medium (TV), NCIS, Person of Interest (TV), Sherlock (TV), Stargate Atlantis
Genre: AU, M/M, SDCC, SDCC2013, San Diego Comic-Con, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-20 13:04:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John drew the same old stale jokes in stale old lines. Why his Publisher, Strand, wanted to send him to San Diego Comic Con, he didn't know.</p><p>He couldn't have imagined (or ever deduced) what he'd find there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wednesday - Paneling - John

**Author's Note:**

> This series is a set of interconnected stories for various fandom's mainly to hook up various pairings at San Diego Comic Con (SDCC). Each story will follow one pairing within the overall series. There turned out to be a overlapping storyline, but shouldn't need to read all the stories to get the fairly simplistic plot.
> 
> This is possibly the closest thing to a WIP that I've ever posted. And while SDCC is over, and I've finished (three days after the fact) the stories, it's still the rawest, post as I went, story I've ever done with fairly minimal editing. 
> 
> I'll (hopefully) be looping back to deal with that soon. In the meantime, take the rawness as being to a degree how SDCC feels like. A mad rush.
> 
> Largely if a fandom is modern day, generally speaking characters can show up. Largely, becayse I reserved the right to arbitrarily keep a few fandoms to be fandoms characters could talk about/visit panels for.
> 
>  
> 
> And just so you know, in this universe both Wormhole X-Treme and Firefly ran for 10 years. What, it's my universe.
> 
> AU in which John is a blogger... errr... in which John does a web comic about his experiences in the RAMC.
> 
>  
> 
> May the hookup begin.

M*A*S*H lasted four times as long as the war because the writers talked to the surgeons who'd been in that war. John thought he'd heard that somewhere once. The electric buzz of light bulbs grinding out light above him while he reattached some kid's lower intestine. Outside the temporary aluminum building, the wind sand scoured anything that moved. He couldn't be sure. By the last few seasons, surgeons would call in only to find that their unique memory had already been played. He supposed that was just the writers getting exhausted with themselves.

Out on the edge of the dull little street where his bedsit existed, John bivouacked on the lumpy back of his duffle. He square shouldered applied his pencil to the white page of his pad. In rectangular squares, stick figures in wobbly lines quipped black bubbled humor as they sawed through bones. 

He'd made the cartoons all through the years of his own theatre of war. Posted them to his blog. No secrets revealed. He'd drawn jokes that had been stale crusts when M*A*S*H aired. His great-uncle, who'd fought at the Somme had made the same jokes. 

John'd drawn and posted to his blog and been followed for whatever reason. Now it was a sort of living. Years of training to be a surgeon. Of holding lives and pulsing hearts in his hands and all that was left was squeezing years of his life into stickfigure jokes. Anyone reading his blog might even think he was still in the RAMC.

He supposed there was a lesson in that.

The Airporter pulled up. He heaved himself to his feet with his cane. He told himself the white pain arching down his tibia was all in his head. His toes ached as if they needed to be cracked and the ball of his foot felt bruised as he put pressure on it. All in his head almost made him stumble and fall as he fumbled for his cane and his duffel and his balance until the driver took his duffel and threw it in the back. He said, "Do you need help?" John shook his head. He did not need help for something that wasn't real. He got in the van. The van was already full of people going places. Places they were supposed to be. 

John limped his way through the front row perched and sat on the empty back bench. He leaned his head against the back wall and let the road bump his head. He had no idea why he was heading to San Diego, California of all places to be at a comic book convention. It was Doyle, his publisher's idea. He was supposed to attend some panels, talk about the collection from his blog and sit in their booth and smile at people. If he had the artistic skill to draw a monkey in that moment, he would have. He tried to draw a tail on one of his stick figures, but the bumps of the road made that impossible and he gave it up as a bad job.

He looked out the window at the red brick buildings and cement tower graffiti as the van sped past. He was going to America. 

He wondered if that meant that he'd have a laugh track now like M*A*S*H when it played on American tv. He supposed he shouldn't have stayed up all last night watching  
episodes and drawing. Scanning. Uploading. Not sleeping. Not perchance to dreaming. At around one, stripping his Sig Sauer until his hands gleamed with gun oil. He had not raised the muzzle to his lips for a goodbye kiss. He had put it away under his mattress. He'd washed his hands and drawn soldiers giving away chocolate diplomacy bullets. 

John blinked and he was at the airport.

He went through the mill of security in a sort of sodden haze. But they were used tired people at airports. They ran him through the long line with his shoes off and his cane run through the machine and put his shoes on and tumbled him out to wait in plastic seats in a holding pit. He bought a sandwich at Pret. He couldn't have said which one. He bought something and juice. He knew he ate them, because there were crumpled plastic wrappers and crumbs on his jeans.

They announced First Class boarding. Someone pushed his way past John and knocked over his juice. John looked down at the spreading stain on the tiles for some sort of dreary significance while a dark haired kid yelled at the blond. His accidental stumbler, based on the way he was standing, was some sort of minted military. Wolf in the middle of a flood of Sloanes and Hooray Henrys, which was a mixed metaphor at best, or worst it wasn't even a metaphor.

He could have told them both it was all fine. He was also very close to making a truly epic mistake by hitting the blond. 

He was very tired. He wiped at the mess with a crumpled napkin and a drawing or two. That's all they were good for. 

"Oh, hey, let me help you with that." The kid threw a metric tonne of napkins on the floor. He grinned over at John. "Do believe that? Some people think that just because they have more money they can... Oh My GOD! Are you John Watson? The John Watson."

John supposed that he was indeed the John Watson, of all the other the John Watson's in the world. He found his hand being vigorously pumped by the kid, who was grinning widely enough to set off an entire string of IEDs. "I am your Biggest fan. I was up half the night reading, "Things the RAMC Shouldn't Let Johnny Do". Every time my feed pinged. You were on fire. God, if only I had my copy of "Stick Figures from the Front". Are you going to be doing more collections of your work? Wow, I can't believe I'm running into you like this. Literally. Although, I suppose that Prat literally ran into you, but I mean. Oh, my God were you wiping the floor with your work?" The kid held onto John's hand with one hand, grabbed at the papers in John's hand with the other and clearly wished for three more hands. 

John extracted his right hand. "Do you want them? They're a little wet." He held them up and they were stained red. The kid was having a seizure over the drawings. John was a doctor and had spent years learning to recognize the signs of a seizure. 

He said, "I... I... really. Oh, my God this is going to be the best convention ever. I haven't even left London and I've met someone amazing. Could you um, sign this, to um, Merlin. If that wouldn't." He glanced over his shoulder. "Oh, they're boarding us. Um, wait, shouldn't you have been with the first class call?"

John smiled. It felt unreal, but he needed to practice his American laugh track. "No. I'm steerage with the rest of the cattle." 

He took back his drawings and quickly signed the upper left, "To Merlin, my fellow steer in deepest juice. John Watson." He hoped that made sense. 

Merlin picked up the drawings and clutched them to his t-shirt. John hoped he'd enjoy being sticky the rest of the trip. John got in line and was swallowed by the plane. He stowed his duffle and took his seat and slept and woke and slept and woke and ate the dinner and slept and woke and arrived more bleary than when he left London.

It was bright and warm. Much like posters had led him to think San Diego would be like.

Passport stamped he checked Harry's hand-me-down phone. There was a message from Doyle, which sounded like he was in a wind tunnel. He listened to it three times before he gave it up as bad business. All he could figure out was he was sharing a room with another one of Strand Publishing's other writers, which was fine. It was all fine. 

People in colorful t-shirts streamed by him. They were laughing and chattering. He put on his laugh track smile and caught a cab to his hotel. There were palm trees and he could see naval ships sailing through a gray green channel. He checked into his hotel room. Whoever he was sharing it with wasn't there. 

Whoever it was had already claimed the bed by the window and covered it with five glossy black leather suitcases. There was a chicken suit sticking it's beak out of one. Yellow feathers lazily drifted onto the floor. 

John couldn't help it. He sat down on the bed and laughed and laughed and laughed and it was not healthy and he should stop this instant and laughed. But the contrast between the hopeful chicken and the stark cases was simply too much for John.

It was just as well that he'd gotten that out of the way, because on his way to the Convention Center he passed a storm trooper holding a sign, "Will minion for cookies". John didn't have a cookie. He had a useless cane that he used to stab the sidewalk as he walked through the gathering crowds. The convention center was a lot larger than he'd been expecting. But at least his cane was good for something as one of the guards at the rows of doors waved him inside, "Attendee or professional?"

John swallowed because he felt stupid saying it, "Professional." 

The man pointed to the row of kiosks behind him. "You'll get your badge there." Which John supposed was that. He got his badge with lanyard, where a very earnest young woman told him to guard it with his life, because if he lost, he would not be able to get it replaced. She had him clip his lanyard through the plastic of his badge so he wouldn't lose it. He was meek. He was mild. He said, "I solemnly pledge to guard this badge with his life." 

He put on his laugh track smile, but he must not have gotten it wrong, because she said, "Are you alright? We have medical staff on hand."

"No, I'm a doctor." She looked shiny as a new minted coin without a bit of life's shrapnel to dent her concave.

She handed him a bag with a cape on it. It was enormous. There was a picture of a cartoon on it. He didn't recognize any of the characters. She handed him some instructions. She handed him a basket. There was fruit in it. There was a card thanking him for his participation in San Diego Comic Con. He blinked at a pear. He blinked at the woman. It seemed that was that.

He limped his way back to his hotel and the hotel lobby bar, where he consumed an overpriced sandwich and a far too cold beer. He went up to his room and told himself that is was fine. It was all fine. He unpacked his bag in the left hand side of the dresser. He laid out his clothes for tomorrow. He unfolded himself into his bed and told himself not to dream.

He didn't listen to himself. He never did.


	2. Thursday - Panelist meetings

When he admitted to himself it was morning, he turned on the light. The bed by the window had clearly not been slept in. 

If Chicken man wanted to use his bed as a prop, that was his business John supposed. He bleared out the window. He blinked. Far below, thousands of colorful people like so many ants streamed towards the convention center. While a long line of curved around the back of the convention center and curled back into the park that sat in the middle of the marina.

He was supposed to go down into that as if he belonged here. But it was all fine. He had his badge. He had a packet of instructions. He'd invaded a country. He was going to get coffee first.

He braved the Starbucks line. He clutched his cup in one hand and stomped his way back to the convention center. There were now a half dozen Storm Troopers who would minion for cookies. 

He held up his badge and the harried looking guards waved him inside.

There were huge posters advertising Game of Thrones. A poster for Breaking Bad advised John to remember a grim looking man's name. John stared up at it, because he had no idea who the man was. A woman in a blue shirt said, "You can't stand there." John stomped on.

He followed the map to the Guest Greenroom. He belonged there. The paper sign on the door said so. He was a guest. The room was more beige than green.

John navigated slowly through folding chairs. A razor thin man sat at the table, his dark curls spilling down over his face, quickly slashing a pen over a wide white piece of drawing paper. He was dressed all in black, except for a tiny yellow bit of fluff stuck to the collar of his jacket. John peered over his shoulder and laughed. If John had had an ounce of drawing talent, he'd have drawn the same thing in uni instead of labeled lines. "Nice foot." The man looked up. John didn't watch a lot of science fiction, but he could practically feel the green beams of light passing over him from that gaze. This wasn't someone newly minted. This was someone who had heard life's explosions, John could feel the echo of them. John swallowed and licked his lips. "I particularly like the shading on Cuneiforms." He held out his hand. "John Watson."

The man grinned as bright as a burning oil well. "Can I borrow your phone?"

"Um, yes." He held it out and felt the brush of the man's fingers over his thumb as he took it. A few quick keystrokes and the man handed it back. Once again, that almost brush of fingers on skin. 

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" A quick head tilt as the man watched for John's reaction.

"What?" John shifted on his feet uncertain. "Um, Afghanistan. I'm sorry. Has someone been talking to you about me." He looked around the room. He didn't know a soul. He didn't know the scalpel eyed soul in front of him. "Do you know me."

"I know you're an army doctor. Invalided home. You have a brother, who you don't get on with, which is only right. Brothers are horrible and should be taken away by beings whose names I've already deleted. You've a therapist. No." He tapped his biro against the angular line of his lips. Hard smooth plastic against smooth skin. John's skin tightened. "You had a therapist, who you fired. Possibly because you still have the psychosomatic limp. Oh, look at the time. We'll be late for our panel." The man was at the door before John could blink. "Come on, the game's afoot."

John swayed forward on his toes. "Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!"

The man winked at him and was out the door. John followed, hoping he was going the right way. Well, no, he didn't really care. He followed left and right down a somewhat dimly lit corridor and right again into a blindingly open hallway with a row of wide windows letting in sunshine on the far side. The man was just disappearing into a door halfway down. John smiled at the man standing watch at the door. "Um, hello, I'm on this panel." He glanced to the left and there was a small white paper sign with his panel on it. He held up his badge and smiled. 

The room was small, which was good. He could handle small. There probably wouldn't be that many people. Everyone was probably going to other rooms. The laser eyed man was sitting behind a small triangle piece of folded paper that read, "Sherlock Holmes." He was already sketching again. There was a John Watson sign next to him. John Watson sat down and looked at the sheet of paper. Sherlock had already progressed to a flyaway break out of the muscles of the foot.

"I think I know how you knew I'm a doctor, Cuneforms and," he waved at the drawing, "medical textbook level flexor digitorum and all that, but how did you know about the rest."

Sherlock pushed back John's sleeve, holding his wrist in his hand, a warm ring of skin around John's arm. "The tan line indicates you've been in the sun, but not for a vacation." He released John's wrist only to place his wide fingered hands on John's shoulders. "The way you stand indicates a military background." John swallowed at the flex as those fingers left him. A tap against his cane. "You haven't removed the tape that indicates this cane is property of LRMC. Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, soldier, army doctor, means Afghanistan or Iraq."

"That's," John swallowed and willed his skin to stop feeling the imprint of fingers now back to twirling a biro. "absolutely amazing." 

"You think so?" Sherlock leaned forward.

John couldn't believe it was even a question. He opened his mouth to say more, but was cut off by a somewhat frantic, "Oh, thank god you're here. You were supposed to wait for me in the Greenroom." A round faced man wiped at the sweat on his forehead. "We're already a few minutes late." He called out to the room. "Hello, everyone, if you're here for "This is the Really Real World - Autobiographical Perspectives in Comic Art" panel then you're in the right place. I'm Mike Stamford from Nerdalicious, I'll be the moderator. Now a few rules..." 

John tuned him out. He looked out at the room. The chairs were full of people now and there were even some standing at the back of the room. When had that happened? Merlin, the boy from the plane yesterday waved at him, and held up a decidedly pink drawing along with John's book. Surprisingly, the blond who had knocked him over was sitting next to him. The rest of the room was full of strangers, who he hoped were here to listen to everyone else. There were two other people on the panel a blond girl-woman and the happiest looking Goth girl that he'd ever seen. 

He heard Sherlock's name and turned back to Mike, "...author of the Art of Deduction, how um..." he peered at the page in front of him, "is this right? How any moron can deduce the Atlantic from a single drop of water." He held up a brightly packaged book with a drop of water on a black background. 

Sherlock sneered at his own book. "Yes." He glanced at John and back out at the audience. "I can look at any one of you and based on a tie or the callouses on your fingers deduce your profession. I observe everything. From what I observe, I deduce everything. When I've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how mad it might seem, must be the truth."

"Um," the dark haired woman twirled one of her pig tails around a finger, "first of all, I love that you're British and I think we should hand you the phone book to read, but I think that's actually inductive reasoning, although, it sounds really cool. So, uh, an example of deduction would be all men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. I drank what?" She waved her hands as if she was fanning away flies. "While, um, an example of induction would be, all bio life that we've found depends on water in a liquid form to live. So, if we find a new biological life form it'll probably need water to live too." She looked at Mike. "Do people still use phone books? Well, there's probably an app." 

The girl-woman giggled. "There's an app for that."

"I knew it."

John was not looking at the them. Sherlock looked about to launch. John stepped on his foot and leaned over, "I think it was amazing what you did earlier." Sherlock's lips unpinched and he flushed slightly. John tapped his ankle for emphasis and leaned back in his seat, trying to pay attention, which was good, because Mike was saying, "John Watson, author of 'Stick Figures from the Front', which is collected from his blog, 'Things the RAMC Shouldn't Let Johnny Do.' So, from what I read, you were on the front lines getting shot at. How did you end up here?"

John held up his cane. "I got shot."

There was a sympathetic groan from the audience. Someone yelled. "Go Vets." "Thank you." "I love you." 

John leaned into his microphone. "I love you too." 

The dark haired woman clutched at her head. "Oh, I so should have done the research on the other panelists. You're both British. Say something else with a Britishism."

John grinned. "Something else," he flailed internally and then knew the perfect word, "love." He waggled his eyebrows, and someone in the audience made a catcall.

Sherlock stepped on his foot. Hard. He glared at the woman. "That is a poor example of English colloquial language. I can think of several I could use."

Mike waved the name placard in front of Sherlock. "Please remember there may be children in the audience. British swear words are still swear words."

The audience laughed. Everyone seemed to be incredibly happy to be there. John felt. He felt. His ankle ached pleasantly from where Sherlock had stepped on it. His entire side felt the warmth from Sherlock sitting on inches away.

He felt alive.

That hadn't happened in awhile.

Mike said, "Next we have Ariel DuBois, who who writes and draws, 'Visions of Justice', a blog about her mother's work as a Psychic Consultant with the Phoenix District Attorney's Office." 

Sherlock groaned and whispered into John's ear, "The number of times I have had my work misdiagnosed as psychic phenomenon."

John whispered back, "I'm a doctor, I try to make only correct diagnosis."

Ariel tapped her microphone. "My mom asked me to be clear that I only write about the cases that are not part of ongoing trials and are part of public record."

The happy Goth said, "Oh, I was going to use that line." She waved at the room. "Hi, Abby Sciuto and I work with the Naval Criminal Investigative Services, headquartered in Washington and I have a webcomic called 'Forensic Chick', because I'm forensic specialist with expertise in ballistics, digital forensics, and DNA analysis and I'm also," she pointed to herself, "a chickity chick," she was wearing a black t-shirt with an image of a yellow chick on it, "and I use my investigative powers for good to figure out all things that are," she gestured in a complicated pattern, "hinky, but I'm only allowed to put out the stuff that doesn't involve an ongoing investigation, so it's mostly about my bouncing around the lab," she bounced in her seat, "and you know, wow," she tapped Ariel on the shoulder, "I just processed that you're Mom is an actual psychic, which is so, cool. What's that like? Are you psychic too. Is she like a Psychometric, and picks up clues from things she touches, or is it more that she picks up the auric fields of suspects, and you know you should never let anyone hypnotize you because it opens your soul to demon possession."

Beside John, Sherlock hissed like a barrel drum about to explode shrapnel, which possibly a bad sign.

Abby bounced in her seat. "Wow, I can't believe I've never heard of your blog, before, and I didn't time to read up on you before I caught my plane, because, you know, we were investigating this, um... thing, which I shouldn't talk about, but it was really cool, and involved death dealing swallows of doom."

John did the only thing he could think of. He leaned forward and said, "Were these swallows African or European?"

"Holy Grail, Batman." Abby waved her hands as if she were trying to pluck swallows out of the air for some hyperactive purpose unknown. 

Sherlock grabbed John's microphone. "There is no such thing as psychic phenomenon."

"Is too," Ariel flipped back her hair and glared at Sherlock.

"Is not." Sherlock enunciated each word like the crack of bullets.

Ariel crossed her arms. "I'm not supposed to argue about this. But everyone in mom's side of the family has the sight. My Mom works for the Phoenix District Attorney's Office. She even carries a gun in her work. I've even helped her on cases."

"Wow." Abby frowned. "Does she use her psychic powers to always hit your target, or maybe bend the bullets to go around corners. 

The audience yelled variously, "I loved that comic." "The movie sucked ass." "I love you." "Can I have your name tag." 

Ariel picked up her name tag. "Sure." Someone in the front row took it. "Sometimes we get visions from objects. Sometimes, Mom gets clues while sleeping, and other times the dead visit, which sounds worse than it is."

"How convenient that the dead come to you to tell you how they were murdered." Sherlock slid the drawing that he had been working on across to Ariel. "Perhaps you can use your psychic powers to identify the profession of the person possessing this foot."

"Uh," Ariel blinked at him. "It doesn't work that way."

Abby threw a paper airplane made from her nameplate into the audience and slurped from a giant cup. She leaned over and looked at the picture of the foot. "If someone will lend me their computer I could probably look up characteristics in the the Podiatrists Forensic Database. There probably is one. There's a database on everything these days. It's a wonderful age in which we live."

Ariel was glaring at the drawing. "It doesn't work that way, and you're mean, and I don't like you."

Sherlock took back his drawing and handed it to John. He was looking at John very intently. "John, using my methods of observing the facts and Deducing," he glared at Abby, who rolled her eyes, "a conclusion, no matter how odd from the results."

John looked down at the drawing. In the upper right hand was the beautifully rendered drawing of the bones of the foot. Beside that was the drawing of the muscles and tendons. Below that was the complete foot. He looked at the mole on the upper left side of the foot over the metatarsal bones and laughed. It felt good to laugh. He looked at Sherlock looking at him. He said, "This is the foot of a Surgeon recently invalided from the RAMC, who doesn't get on with his sister."

Sherlock groaned, "There's always something,"

John leaned forward and plucked the bit of yellow off of Sherlock's jacket, which was ridiculous because it was far too warm for that jacket. The fluff was a tiny yellow chicken feather. "In addition, you, Sherlock Holmes, are the Chicken Man, and a bit of a creeper."

Everyone in the room started clapping and Merlin yelled, "This is the best panel ever in the history of all panels," while Mike groaned, "I have completely lost control of the room," and Sherlock beamed, "I despaired of your ever noticing."

Abby clapped, "I don't even know how you did that or what that means, but go science. And I think psychic phenomenon is a science."

John realized that he was standing, and standing very close to Sherlock. He cleared his throat and sat down. "Uh, Sherlock is sharing a hotel room with me. This," He held up the drawing pad, "Is my foot."

Ariel giggled.

Mike said, "I give up. Audience questions?"

The panel actually quieted down from there. Sherlock only ranted once about deducing the Atlantic from a drop of water. John flipped through Sherlock's book. The art was stunningly detailed and the way each image led through a series of deductions to a final conclusion that John never would even have conceived of in the first drawing was simply brilliant.

The pushy blond, whose name turned out to be Arthur, didn't so much ask a question, but made an impassioned speech, as a currently serving member of the British Army, simultaneously thanking John for his years of service and for saving the life of his best friend, Percival, by stopping his bleeding out the day that their convoy had been ambushed at Maiwand, the day John had been shot. They'd been in the same firefight. The same bullets had rained on both of them. The same shrapnel. It was incredibly awkward, and John didn't know what to say when Arthur handed him a bottle of very expensive twenty-five year old whiskey purchased by his entire squad. "Um, thank you for something possibly older than you are." He bobbed his head and since he couldn't think of anything else, gave Arthur his name plate. Ariel whispered, "That was so horrible," and smiled sadly at him. "But you saved his friend, and your friend, Murray, saved you."

He glanced at Sherlock, who was watching Ariel. Sherlock said, "Interesting. That is the sixth time you've demonstrated knowledge of that nature. When all else is eliminated, accept what remains. Perhaps there is psychic phenomenon."

Abby stood up. "I don't know what brought that on, but I really need a hug. Come on, group hug."

"Uh, no. Thank you. But we're British," said John, but Abby was not a force to be denied. Fortunately, it was the end of the panel and the room erupted in camera flashes. Several people yelled, "Best panel ever," as they left.

John waited while Sherlock readjusted his coat. Sherlock said, "She wrinkled my suit."

John brushed off more fuzz off of one lapel. "Your suit is perfect. You look perfect." Sherlock glanced away. John removed his hand. "But if I had to deduce, I think you prefer compliments to your mental arts, not your looks." Sherlock glanced away and back for another laser look and swirled to the door and winked at John. But by the time John made it to the door, he was gone. 

John told himself not to be disappointed. He told himself that he had to be down at the Strand booth in twenty minutes. 

He told himself a good many things as he made his way into the madhouse.

It didn't stop him from looking for Sherlock, or a giant chicken.


	3. Friday - The Mysterious Case of the Six Darth Mauls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Darth Maul figures are shattered and there is an unexpected development.

John still had yet to see a trace that Sherlock was sleeping in the room that they shared. He'd waiting up last night for he wasn't sure what. He'd watched fireworks out the window of their hotel room. He'd watched the City lights until he was about to fall asleep in a very uncomfortable chair.

In the morning, the chicken suit was unmoved. John walked with deliberate punctuations of his cane to the Convention Center to sit in a booth in the vast Dealer's Room. It wasn't overwhelming. He'd invaded Afghanistan. He'd run through enemy fire. He'd seen military vehicles lift up and off the road from exploding IEDs.

The Dealer's Room was a bit like an explosion. Booths selling and promoting and drawing and shiny flashing lights. Things to look at from every direction. It was good that he didn't have to painfully walk around through crowds that didn't seem to notice he was a man with a psychosomatic leg injury. No, he sat in the Strand booth and watched people walk past down the aisle. He talked to one or two. It was all fine.

His phone buzzed. There was a text from Sherlock. He squinted at it because he hadn't known Sherlock's number was in his phone. He barely knew how to add numbers to his contact list as it was. "Come if convenient. SH."

John texted back, "Can't. Working."

"Come if inconvenient. Anyway, you're just sitting there. SH."

John looked up. He didn't see Sherlock. He texted back. "Are you stalking me?"

"Surveillance is not stalking. Testing to see if you would notice where I am. SH." John looked up at the ceiling. Another text. "I am not on the ceiling. SH."

John stood up. There was a mirror in the booth selling goth dresses across the aisle. He said to Martin, who was running the booth. "I'm going for a walk." He didn't wait for a reply. He followed the line of sight into the next booth, selling books. He still didn't see Sherlock. Not until the man straightened himself and removed a brass and green eye piece. Sherlock said, "I walked by your booth six times."

John shrugged and smiled up. "That's amazing. I never even noticed."

Sherlock flushed slightly. "Steam Punk is the new black."

John had no idea what that meant, but he followed Sherlock down the aisle and out a set of doors. "Where are we going?"

"Away from there." Sherlock flipped up the collar of his coat. "There is far too much distraction down there." 

They walked down some stairs to a mezzanine level and down a dim hall, when there was a sudden yell of "Help," from around the corner.

John ran towards the sound. "I'm a Doctor. Make way." A thin young man leaned against a wall. There was a trickle of blood from from a blunt force injury to his right temple. John examined his pupil dilation. "Do you see how many fingers I'm holding up?"

A woman said, "Did you see the person who did this?"

"Um, three fingers." The man squeezed his eyes shut. I was just walking when someone hit me." The man looked down at the empty bag at his feet. "Oh, no. They took my Darth Maul. Fuck. I stood in line for four hours to get that figure. It's a limited edition con exclusive."

"Why would anyone steal a Darth Maul? Everyone knows those movies don't exist," said a weasily looking man in a red shirt that declared Picard to Make Everything so Right.

The woman, who was wearing a faded Star Wars shirt glared at him. "Ray Parks did some brilliantly awesome fight choreography in that role."

"And some cardboard thin characterization in a movie that didn't happen, yeah." Picard man crossed his arms.

John glanced around to look for Sherlock. He was standing in the door of the Men's room. "The figure's been smashed in here." 

The injured man moaned and tumbled into the bathroom. He clutched at a red and black piece of plaster. "Why would someone do this?"

John looked back out at the hallway, "And why smash it in here. If they'd been caught, there's no exit."

Sherlock sighed. "Do I have to spell out everything. The lighting is much better in here."

Picard man clicked away at his phone. "Dude, it's all over twitter #DarthMaulSmashedSDCC. This is like the third one of these smashed today." He took a picture of the man clutching his shard. "Dude, you are like going to be famous. Woah dude, I bet this was done by some wack job with an obsession with erasing the existence of Darth Maul."

Sherlock grinned at John. "Come on." Sherlock swirled out of the room. John followed, which was getting to be a pattern. He liked it.

They headed back down the stairs to the Dealer's Room. "I thought there was too much distraction down there."

"Now there's something interesting going on." Sherlock held a receipt out to John and started clicking furiously on his phone. "Booth 4005. Gelder & Co."

Now that he was back down on the floor, John glanced at his watch. "I really should go back the Strand booth. I'm supposed to be promoting Stick Figures."

"Boring." Sherlock eeled his way through the crowd. 

John looked at his watch again and back at the rapidly disappearing Sherlock. "Excuse me." He pushed his way after Sherlock through the immense warren of tables and displays. Some of the displays were two stories high in the cavern of the room. Sherlock darted down one row and then up another. He was a guided missile, which John didn't know what that made him. They came to Gelder and Co's booth. It was a square box of a space made up of glass shelves full of figures of heroes in variously unlikely poses. 

There was a man nervously applying clear plastic over a jagged opening in one of his display cases. Sherlock handed John something. "Distract him while I examine the area." 

John looked down. He was holding a cheap plastic badge. The kind he'd purchased when he was a boy from the corner store. He shrugged. "John Watson." He flashed it very quickly at the man as he stood up. "I have a few questions regarding the Darth Maul figures that...."

"Oh, God. I already gave my statement earlier. Someone broke in and stole the last one of the set and then smashed it on the floor. With everything in the Dealer's room, why did they take that." The man poked at the cabinet. "My partner said they were cursed. Why didn't I listen to him?"

John prompted, "Cursed." Behind the man, Sherlock raised his eyebrows, but John was falling without a net here.

"When we were casting them. Two of the artists in our studio, Bepo and Pietro got into a knife fight. It was horrible. We make one of a kind plaster figures. We're artists. We paint things. We don't get into knife fights. There was blood everywhere." The man wrung his hands. "I cleaned them off with bleach. I thought it would be fine." The man rubbed his face. "I spent three months on the designs and molds for Darth Maul. I was particularly proud of his expressiveness." He looked like he'd been kicked unfairly. "I heard that people who bought them are being attacked. Do you think some Dark Power is destroying them?"

John cleared his throat. "No. Do you know the location of either um... Bepo or Pietro?"

"John, they engaged in a knife fight in this man's studio. He doesn't know." Sherlock briefly held up his phone, but it was too far away for John to see anything. "We have someone to see."

John did what came naturally. He followed Sherlock out of the booth.

"So, um, now what?" John reached for Sherlock's elbow. The crowd around them felt like it was actively trying to pull them apart. 

Sherlock looked down. He tucked John's hand further through his arm. They were a solid front now against the waves of people. "We're going to see the Owlman."

"The Owlman?" John was incredibly aware of the warmth surrounding his arm.

Sherlock's thumb grazed briefly over John's knuckle. "He owes me a favor for some input I gave him on a deductive algorithm."

John supposed he should be asking just who an Owlman was, might be, or what he had to do with anything. The sensible thing would be to go down to the Strand booth and have a quiet cuppa and watch the world parade by.

He didn't do any of those things. He followed Sherlock through a door marked "Authorized Personnel Only" naturally enough. 

The room was brilliantly lit for all that it had no windows. It also smelled like ham. Sitting with his back to the far wall was, presumably, the Owlman. He turned stiffly away from a wide curve of monitors. "Mr. Holmes, what an unexpected pleasure." He didn't say it like their visit was unexpected or a pleasure. 

"Finch, I need you to run an image recognition on some video footage that I just sent you. " Sherlock clicked rapidly on his phone.

Finch replied. "I would have thought you would deduce the names from the existence of the images." He and Sherlock looked at each other for a long moment. Finch said, "Names for a number later."

Sherlock scowled. "Only if it's at least an 8." 

Finch pursed his lips and set to typing. Given the way Finch was moving, he appeared to have been in an accident resulting in a 2-level posterolateral fusion. Perhaps. John shouldn't make diagnoses without seeing his chart, which was none of his business. 

John stomach growled reminding him that he hadn't had lunch. "Why does it smell like ham?"

"Because we can have crock pots and not microwaves." Finch looked from Sherlock to John and back to Sherlock in slow turns from his waist. "Interesting." 

John looked in the crockpot. "So, you're making ham stew?"

The door burst open and a very tall, very broad, very angry looking man ran through the door holding a Beretta Storm 9mm. He took in both Sherlock and John and very calmly said, "Are you okay, Harold."

"I'm fine. These gentlemen were just leaving. Mr. Holmes, I've sent you your names." Finch stood up and walked over the crockpot. "Mr. Reese, you're in time for lunch." 

Sherlock said, "We don't have time to eat." Sherlock and Mr. Reese circled each other. 

"Fortunate, as you not invited." Finch put a piece of ham in a paper bowl and handed it to Reese, who had done a magic trick with his gun. When John tried that, he was always aware of the warming steel on his spine, but he guessed that Reese would have a holster. John could use a holster.

Sherlock ran out the door. John looked mournfully at the crockpot and followed him. 

He didn't go back to the booth.

Instead they followed Carl Jimenez with a turtle shell bag full of figures, as he stood in line after line to buy more action figures. Somewhere at the bottom of that bag was a Dark Maul figure. Hopefully uncrushed by the sheer weight on the man's back.

Over those hours, Sherlock variously wore goggles and a prosthetic arm device covered in gears, a soft white furry hat with cat ears, and a cap with a knitted white beard. John did not wear a disguise. This was, according to Sherlock, John's own fault for not bringing disguises. 

He was still of use fishing Sherlock's phone out of his back pocket, which he could not get out due to the arm prosthetic. Wrapping an arm around his lathe thin body radiating heat in that coat and sliding down the silk lined curve of his back pocket, firm muscle beneath the silk. 

He was of use pushing the thick curls of Sherlock's hair back under the soft fur of his hat. Sherlock's warm breath brushing across his cheek while he muttered deductions about passers by.

John also bought a sandwich, which Sherlock claimed was of no use to anyone, but he ate it when John fed the damned thing to him. 

John should have been at his booth. He really should have. 

He also couldn't remember where he'd left his cane, but he wasn't about to ask Sherlock's help finding it.

When the Dealer's Room closed, Carl headed out of the building in the mass of people. John was certain, they'd lose him or he'd lose Sherlock. He didn't lose either. Out of the crush and into the Gaslamp and farther out they followed the slow turtle Carl's way. They dropped farther and farther back. 

Sherlock muttered, "I think this may be the least observant man in history."

A dark shape burst out from behind a bush tackling Carl and grabbing his bag. "No, I think that maybe this bloke," said John as he broke into a run.

The man swung the bag at John, who ducked, because really there was no balance on a bag full of action figures. They grappled for what felt like an hour, but he knew could only be seconds. Fist. Leg. Hook. Head. Down. "Stay down." John held the man's hand behind his back and looked up to see Sherlock smashing a familiar action figure on the ground. 

The man shrieked, but there was nothing but ceramic shards on the pavement.

Sherlock laughed. "I knew it. What did you hide in the figure Bepo?"

John looked at Reese. He looked at Sherlock. He looked at Bepo and wondered how Sherlock knew this wasn't Pietro. Bepo snarled at them. "I don't have to answer questions."

Which since the police arrived and took their statements, which John kept to a slightly shorter, "We were walking down the street and I saw this man attack the man with the bag," they were soon released.

As they walked away, John said, "Well, that was a bit frustrating. Do you suppose we'll find out what was in the Darth Maul?" 

Sherlock held up his phone. "There's one more name on the list." Which was how they ended up at the timeshare of a Dr. McKay, who had only bought the figure for his sister, and he had no idea why, because she was a traitorous traitor and they should leave because he had work to do.

Sherlock winked at John as the door closed. He walked briskly around the corner into a small deserted plaza. A security light buzzed down on them. Sherlock knelt down and smashed the figure against the side of a small fountain and hissed. John put one hand on Sherlock's shoulder and looked down. There was a small silver sword in the broken plaster. "What is it?"

"It's what my brother has been looking for and I've found it without even attempting to do so." His expression was a mixture of utter disgust and delight, which shouldn't have been possible, but John had come to the opinion that Sherlock could do anything. 

He really didn't think about kissing the expression from Sherlock's face, he just did it. Pushed his hands into those thick curls and tugged him closer. Tasted the deductions off of Sherlock's tongue and cradled the whirling engine of his mind. It felt like they were an explosion that hadn't gone off soon enough. Sherlock tugged him up and backwards, out of the light between two shrubs. Sherlock's hands were under John's in rapid jerky motions as if he were trying to deduce by touch, which maybe he was. Sherlock whined slightly high in his throat.

"Shh, I've got you." John cradles Sherlock's amazing head in hands and made his kissing way down his neck.

"This isn't." Sherlock swallowed and pulled away slightly, while still not ceasing his frantic touching. "This isn't really my area."

John lightly raked his fingers across Sherlock's cock. It twitched hot and hard under the fabric. "It is mine."

Sherlock growled, "Mine." He crowded John further against the wall, grinding against him, which was wonderful and hot and lovely, and this really had been John's area, and God it had been since forever. Since never anything like this. He flipped them around and unbuckled Sherlock's belt in one move. He had Sherlock's cock in his hand before his growled protest could do anything other than dissolve into a moan of, "John."

Clever fingers made their way into his own flies. Long clever fingers wrapped around John. They didn't mirror each other's motions. They weren't that coordinated. It was messy. A rhythm of gasps and quick erratic motion ending in a sudden blinding heat and a mess all over both of them.

Sherlock stood there blinking at him, dazed and looking oddly young and old at the same time. John sacrificed a sock in the fountain and cleaned them both up. As John dabbed at him, Sherlock said, "John." He cleared his throat. "John, I would very much like." He shuddered as John tucked him back in. "John." 

John picked up the little sword from the shards and put it in his pocket. He tucked his arm through Sherlock's and kissed his cheek. "We're sharing a room."

"Oh." Sherlock meekly let John lead for all of one-two-three seconds. "Oh. John!" He took John's hand and ran in the direction of their hotel.

John did what came naturally. He followed Sherlock's lead.


	4. Saturday - Con with a side of Chicken Soup

John woke up sore and alone. 

He wasn't sure how he felt about that. 

After they'd come back and experimented on several more configurations with Sherlock pausing to make notations, John had fallen into the sleep of the well and truly shagged. He'd hoped to wake up to, he wasn't sure what he'd hoped to wake up to.

His stomach gurgled. He pushed himself through some sort of morning routine and headed out. Coffee and a bagel from the hotel Starbucks and a brisk walk, which was simply wonderful. He put his hand on his leg and felt the muscles move the way they ought to move. 

He wasn't headed in any particular direction. He ended up on a street corner looking at piles of paper handouts clogging the drains. There was homeless man with a cardboard sign that read, "Out of work, out of hope." He was wearing dog tags amid the grime of his clothes. 

Even before John'd been shot, well, there but for the grace of God went he. John had had a certain tradition while on leave. 

He ducked into a corner shop and bought a cardboard container full of hot chicken soup. Without knowing how much the man had been eating, he didn't want to get much more. He added an aple and a bottle of water. He handed them to the man with a smile. "Which war was yours?"

Percy was a vet from the first Gulf war. He smelled like cough syrup and sweat and fecal material. John had smelled worse. They talked for a rambling while. Long enough to make sure Percy ate his soup.

John made his way back to the Convention Center. He was on another panel on Graphics and the Art of Artlessness, and he wasn't entirely clear on the theme. The room was packed, because, as he learned later, there was a Browncoat event in the same room later, and the rumor was Nathan Fillion would be dropping in.

Afterwards, he sat for a very uncomfortable hour at the booth. There were no texts from Sherlock. He looked very carefully at all the costumed people as they went by, but he didn't recognize anyone.

Then his time was his own. Since he felt like the well and truly shagged, he headed back to the room. 

There in the center of the bed, was a pile of paper. The top page was of a drawing of a brain. The text next to it read, "From this. SH." The edge of the page had been stained with something yellow that had long since dried. 

On the next page was another drawing of a heart, which glistened red and blue in the light from the window. "Or I suppose, metaphorically this, for moronically non-literal individuals. SH." 

John turned the drawing over. 

The next was a drawing that could have been pulled from any number of Medical textbooks. It was a figure of a flayed man. "Even from this. SH."

The next drawing was a simple line drawing. No colors. Simple broad strokes of a pen on a page. John walking briskly down a street, a huddled figure crouched halfway down the page. " I could not have deduced the existence of you. SH."

John found himself smiling and getting all over quite chuffed. He sniffed and carefully put the drawings into his duffle between the Con magazine and the program. 

If Sherlock wanted to leave things at this, this was pretty good. Ships passing in the night and all that. He rolled up his clothes and put them into his duffle. He was leaving first thing in the morning and if he felt turned around, well, it was a turned around sort of world.

He woke up over and over in the night, expecting to see Sherlock looming over him to say the game was afoot, and it was fine that he was alone. 

Really, it was all fine.


	5. Sunday - Strongly Implied Yes

He pried open his eyes. 

Sherlock was talking. "...thinks that his errands are so very important just because the world is at stake, pompous-rotund-canker, and he's even worse now that someone has become brain damaged enough to...too... it's repulsive, but I told him that we would be working with him and not for him, and at a,"

"What?" John swallowed. Although possibly given the damp spot on his pillow, that was a lost cause.

Sherlock sniffed. "John, I told you all this."

John sat up and pushed his pillows against the headboard. He thought about that. "Was I there when you said it?"

Sherlock examined a place in the air halfway between them. "Irrelevant."

John settled back against the pillows. "Why don't you go over it again."

Sherlock crawled forward until he was an inch or so from John's face. "Fate of the world. There could be danger. Are you with me?"

John did the only sensible thing. He kissed the madman grinning at him. It was a mad, mad world.

John felt that strongly implied a yes.

**Author's Note:**

> It occurs to me I should wrap this up with some sort of end note.
> 
> Since I somehow ended up with a Dark is Rising sort of plot, despite that when planning these fic I resolved no Dark is Rising overarching plot. Apparantly, when I write quickly, I ignore myself.
> 
> Anyway, this isn't a WIP. This is the end. Unless I can think of a plot that requires: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard, Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Merlin, Arthur Pendragon, John Reese, Harold Finch, Charlie Bradbury, Diana Prince, Donna Noble, Mycoft Holmes, Dean and Sam Winchester, Castiel, and other assorted minor characters that showed up.
> 
> Well, okay. The Goa'uld think they are looking for artifacts left behind by Echidna, who they assume was a Goa'uld. The Super Secret EVIL Cthuloid cult know that they are trying to free Echidna and Typhon, and their offspring from beneath Mount Etna.
> 
> The characters above break off into smaller and more writeable sets to go figure the plot and find magical maguffins, all the while the writer curses having already hooking up the characters at SDCC, because it would be more dramatic to slowly do over the course of the story.
> 
> They figure it out, deal with the Goa'uld and the cultists. The Machine seriously wants to know why all ancient texts haven't been scanned and there aren't more cameras in ancient temples. Bwhaha, Echidna and her offspring are free. Fight. Fight. Fight, which I hate writing anyway, and triumph of a new age, in which the general populace learns about magic and the Stargate program.
> 
> Cue Merlin and Arthur moving to the actually quite small castle in the North of France, which was renovated in the 1800s to look more castley, which is why Camelot in Merlin looked so pretty.
> 
> Mycroft runs the world. Donna tells him not to be daft.
> 
> John Watson changes his blog to "Things Johnny really Ought to Do, or Mad Adventures" and starts writing about how amazing he thinks Sherlock is and stops talking about the war. There is adventure.
> 
> John Reese is thoroughly pawned by Harold Finch and the Machine, and they set up house in a really nice virtual data center in Space. Why in Space, because then Finch could be Batman, building a space station as a line item in his R and D budget. This is why teleportation would be critical. They do eventually touch during sex. They don't stop playing trust games. The Machine orders them a great many things online, which really couldn't be called sweet.
> 
> Rodney McKay and John Sheppard win the next year's Masquerade at SDCC. McKay develops a Pavlovian response when Sheppard drawls his name, which results in many advances in science and a lot of PWP.
> 
> Charlie Bradbury and Diana Prince travel the countryside fighting evil in a pretty sweet looking vintage VW Bus, which Diana occasionally carries when it breaks down.
> 
> Sam and Dean/Castiel likewise. Only in the Metallicar.
> 
> There. The end.


End file.
